The Entire Northern Side Was Covered With Fire by Rivka Galchen, 2010
The magic trick:
Creating a sense of desperation out of a numb lack of desperation
R is for Rivka.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. At the same time. For the same person.
Our protagonist is going through some stuff in this story. She has a published novel. That’s good. Her husband has left her pregnant and alone. That’s bad.
In short, these are massive life changes that would seem to merit heavy emotional purges. But our protagonist is pretty even keeled in the story. Disturbingly so. She isn’t too up or too down. She’s just painfully self-absorbed.
The result is the feeling that you are entering into a haze of depression for 10 pages. This is not happy place. She isn’t thrilled with her literary success. She isn’t afraid when she should be afraid. She isn’t desperate. She just is. Which is it’s own sort of desperation, I suppose. This story does a remarkable job of creating that feeling. And that’s quite a trick on Galchen’s part.
The selection:
“Did I tell you that the pilot thing is finally fully dead now?”
“Gosh.”
“Yeah. Well, do you miss Jonathan?”
“I wanted to tell you about this other letter. I don’t know why this guy wrote to me in particular. He didn’t say. He was very polite. He said simply that he had an idea for a movie, that it involved the Tunguska incident of 1908, and he wanted to know if it was a reasonable hypothesis that the explanation for the Tunguska incident could be antimatter–”
As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.
Subscribe to the Short Story Magic Tricks Monthly Newsletter to get the latest short story news, contests and fun.
Short Story Magic Tricks 